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Griffiths ended the season on a high with his heroics in Scotland’s 2-2 World Cup qualifying draw against England where he bagged two stunning free-kicks late on.

It continued a fine end to the campaign where he didn’t look back after replacing the injured Moussa Dembele in April’s Scottish Cup semi-final.

With the £20million-rated Frenchman back to fitness, Griffiths knows the battle is back on for the No.1 striker role.

But the 26-year-old doesn’t want to be warming the bench again and hopes his end-of-season exploits have given boss Rodgers something to think about.

Griffiths said: “I don’t want to be going back on the bench for the full campaign, I want to be playing. I’m going to be 27 in August, I’m no spring chicken.

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“I’m probably in the best form of my career so far and it’s one of those ones when you don’t want to be playing second fiddle.

“If that’s the case, I’ll need to go away and work hard and speak to the manager to find out what’s going to happen.

“You never know, I might start the season ahead of Moussa.

“It’s up to the manager and what he wants to go with.

“He knows he has two players who want to play week in, week out and it’s up to us to fight it out for that one position.

“It’s a new season, it will be 50-50 and it’s just about how hard you work in training, how well you’re looking, how sharp you are.

“Obviously in the pre-season friendlies you need to show what you’re all about. The Champions League qualifiers come up very soon so he has to make his mind up pretty quickly about who’s going to be number one.”

Griffiths celebrates after putting Scotland 2-1 up

Griffiths has watched his brilliant brace against the Three Lions over and over and praised Rodgers for his role in his performance.

He said: “I will never, ever forget those two goals.

“But it’s gone now, I just need to look forward to this season with Celtic and see what I can do.

“The manager texted me straight after the game and said he was very impressed with how I played, not just my goals but my link-up play as well.

“As a player coming into pre-season last season that was something he was wanting to improve and in the course of the season he has seen improvement in that.

Celtic's Leigh Griffiths and Brendan Rodgers (Image: SNS Group)

“He probably wouldn’t have expected to be saying at the end of the season I would be man of the match against England and would score two goals, so it was nice to hear that from the boss.

“After the game the boys were saying how unlucky we were but it’s a point nobody expected us to get and we need to look forward to the two games in September now.

“The gaffer must take massive credit for it because without his training and the way he wants to work, I wouldn’t be in that position.

“The fitness levels are incredible, and the way he has his teams set up is the way we play with Scotland too, with that single striker.

“He has to take big credit for it because he has seen improvements in my game.”